State House To Vote On Waste Flap

May 18, 1988|By Fred Marc Biddle.

The Illinois House of Representatives will vote this week on a bill that, if passed, would be the beginning of the end of a 13-year dispute over a mound of radioactive waste in the middle of West Chicago.

Where the waste will go, however, is a question that may make the bill, introduced by state Rep. Donald Hensel (R., West Chicago), a tough sell to some representatives.

The 13 million cubic feet of thorium residue, located at Ann and Factory Streets on the former site of the Lindsay Light and Chemical Co., is neither animal, mineral nor vegetable, radiologically speaking. That fact has ruled out a disposal site for low-level nuclear waste that may be built by 1993 in or near Martinsville.

Supporters of Hensel`s bill have lobbied especially hard. Some of them have come out swinging at Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp., which owns the site and opposes the bill.

``This stuff can`t cut both ways. If it`s too hazardous to dump in Martinsville, then it`s certainly too hazardous to keep in the middle of a neighborhood of 2,000 people with a school a few blocks away,`` said U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert (R., Ill.).

Kerr-McGee supports a 5-year-old recommendation by the staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the residue, called ``mill tailings,`` be buried on the former factory site, in a clay-lined, earth-covered cell that would be built by the company at a cost of $20 million or more.

The radioactive tailings were produced by Lindsay and subsequent owners from 1931 until the late 1960s, when Kerr-McGee bought the factory. Nine years after it was discovered that residents had routinely hauled the tailings away from the factory for use as landfill, Kerr-McGee in 1984 began to excavate sites citywide, bringing it back to the site of the razed factory.

Although that cleanup ended last winter, West Chicago wants the mound of waste to go. Kerr-McGee officials say that removing the waste from town would be more than twice as expensive as burying it at the site.

The regulatory commission now has jurisdiction over the waste. Hensel`s bill would encourage the commission to turn that jurisdiction over to Illinois officials; though it is not binding, it is considered a prerequisite for the commission`s allowing Illinois to decide what to do with the waste.

``West Chicago is not the appropriate place,`` said Tom Kerr, chief of the low-level waste division of the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety.

``If we had jurisdiction, we would work with Kerr-McGee and with other communities elsewhere to resolve the problem`` of where to locate the waste.

But the state agency has ruled out sending the thorium to any of the potential Downstate sites-Martinsville, Fairfield, and Wayne County-that are vying to become the home of a low-level nuclear waste dump serving Illinois and Kentucky.

Although the radioactivity of the thorium is no greater than that of many of the wastes that are supposed to end up at the dump, its half-life-the time needed for half of the radioactivity to disappear-is 14 billion years. Most of the materials destined for the planned low-level dump have half-lives of 500 years or less, Kerr said.

That makes West Chicago a special maintenance problem, but not an especially dangerous one, Kerr said. ``That`s why they will not be disposed of at the low-level nuclear waste facility,`` he said. ``But it`s very easy to get the two issues confused.``

Apparently, that was the case last month, when the House Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources passed Hensel`s bill to the floor by a 9-7 vote. Several committee members worried aloud that an unknown quantity might someday end up in their back yards.

Hensel concedes that ``we may have alienated some of the Downstate reps,`` but says his bill now has bipartisan support. Reps. Grace Mary Stern

Meanwhile, Kerr-McGee apparently hopes that reiterating its arguments against moving the waste will be enough to sink the bill. But some of the bill supporters say the company has been doing more than that.

West Chicago Mayor A. Eugene Rennels, for example, charged in an interview that Kerr-McGee had secretly told officials of the proposed dump-site communities that moving the material to their areas would be a danger to them. ``I guess it came down to the almighty dollar,`` Rennels said.

Hastert said in a separate interview that a Kerr-McGee lobbyist had confirmed Rennels` charge. But officials of Martinsville and Wayne County said Tuesday that Kerr-McGee hadn`t contacted them. Fairfield has just been added to the list of possible sites.

Annita Bridges, a spokeswoman for Kerr-McGee, said that although opposing any move of the West Chicago waste ``is certainly our position, we didn`t do any lobbying with officials in Martinsville`` or in other communities.

Kerr, the state official, said that Kerr-McGee officials were present at a hearing discussing the low-level dump, held in Martinsville last March. But he said he didn`t know of any other involvement in the area by Kerr-McGee.